Flywheels and Data Centers

Vycon’s technology works in a similiar way to regenerative braking. Moving trains carry a lot of kinetic energy, and the company believes they can harness this energy whenever a train slows down at a station. By connecting a flywheel to the rail system, Vycon believes that the kinetic energy could be converted to electrical power. This electricity could then be used to get the train moving again – it is a system that has had been used with great success in hybrid vehicles. However trains would certainly generate a lot more energy then a Prius.

The mother of all ingenious hacks has emerged: if you have an Android smartphone and a T-Mobile (US) unlimited messaging plan, you can now use an app called Smozzy to surf the web… for free.

Smozzy is basically just a wrapper around the standard Android browser, but instead of using a data (2.5, 3, 4G) connection, everything is funneled through SMS and MMS. Whenever you click a link, instead of firing off a packet to a remote web server, a web request is instead sent to Smozzy’s intermediate server via SMS. Smozzy forwards the request, downloads the web page you’re trying to visit, and then sends it along to your phone as MMS messages. Both SMS and MMS are completely free with T-Mobile’s unlimited messaging plan.

With a name like SkyNET, it’s got to be scary. This flying robo-hacker deserves its “Terminator”-inspired moniker: Although it stops short of actually hunting humans, it’s a potential nightmare for anyone with a wireless home network. Worse, it’s a DIYer’s dream: cheap and easy to build and fun to operate.

Listener John sent this in:
Providing Clean Flywheel Power for Energy Storage and Power to Rail Traction Systems
Kinetic Traction Systems, Inc. (KTSi) designs and manufactures next generation flywheel systems for voltage support and energy recycling that increase performance, lower capital costs and reduce energy usage.